


What if?

by rinkle



Category: StarTrek: Enterprise
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-13
Updated: 2010-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 19:38:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/116178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinkle/pseuds/rinkle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thoughts, signs and portents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What if?

**Author's Note:**

> **What if?**

**What if?**

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters already depicted in Star Trek: Enterprise, and I'm not making any money off this story.

Rating: PG.

Spoilers: The Expanse.

Archive: If you want to, but please ask me first.

 **A/N:** I really need to get my thesis finished, and then maybe I'll get off this depressing kick. This idea wouldn't leave me alone. And thanks to my beta SailorCoruscant. You're a legend. Inspired by a comment somebody made in regard to Dreams.

"What if you could fly?"

"I'd soar above the world. I wouldn't come down for anything; feeling the wind beneath me, around me, the stars so much nearer. What if you were a boy?"

"Trip! What sort of 'what if?' is that?"

"You have to answer."

"Alright. I'd knock you out for starters. What if something happens to one of us?" Trip rolled off his back and looked at her. She regarded him seriously. "Trip? You have to answer."

"Nothing's going to happen to me, Lizzie."

"I wasn't just referring to something happening to you. People still do die, you know."

"Nothing's going to happen to you either." He looked her in the eyes.

"You still haven't answered."

"Well, if something happens to me, you get my harmonica; if something happens to you I get your designs."

"Hey, that's hardly fair."

"I know, my harmonica's worth a lot more than your designs." He laughed as she pushed him backwards, before falling quiet. The warm sunlight suddenly felt icy on his skin. Lizzie regarded him seriously.

He looked beyond Lizzie to see a shadow reaching out to touch her; a blurred cross on the ground. The Sun's rays were filtered by the tree, the branches casting shadows—dark in the purity of the light around them—the boards that formed the floor of their tree house the crosspiece. Lizzie's own shadow touched him, darkening the light, lengthening the cross until it reached him too, a dagger of darkness. Her blonde hair was lit like a halo around her head, her blue eyes suddenly otherworldly.

Trip stared at the chasm that had become his life. Malcolm stood silently beside him; respectful of the memories he was lost in. Trip hadn't thought about that day in years. The symbolism had unnerved him at the time; he was not one to believe in signs and portents. At least he hadn't been. But now he wondered...

What if?


End file.
